Catatonia

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  catatonia \cat`a*ton"ia\ n. [Gr. katatonos, stretching down,
     depressed, fr. kata` down + to`nos stretching, straining,
     tone (sound). --Stedman.] (Psychiatry)
     an abnormal behavioral syndrome characterized by stupor,
     negativism, and muscular rigidity, sometimes alternating with
     purposeless excitement, and seen most frequently in


     schizophrenia; called also {catatonic schizophrenia}.
     [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  catatonia
       n 1: extreme tonus; muscular rigidity; a common symptom in
            catatonic schizophrenia
       2: a form of schizophrenia characterized by a tendency to
          remain in a fixed stuporous state for long periods; the
          catatonia may give way to short periods of extreme
          excitement [syn: {catatonic schizophrenia}, {catatonic
          type schizophrenia}]